March 24, 2014 New Recipe - Mahi Mahi poached in Cauliflower Soup with steamed asparagus v.2

March 24, 2014 New Recipe - Mahi Mahi poached in Cauliflower Soup and steamed asparagus v.2

Since we still had some thawed PPI Mahi Mahi, we decided to make the same recipe that we made last night and for me to watch its prep this time, so I could determine the amounts of ingredients and cooking method.

Refer to last night’s recipe also, because I fixed it, but here goes.

herbs, butter and wine sauteing

fish, herbs, after soup added, ready to poach

poaching fish, soup and herbs covered

Recipe for Mahi Mahi in Cream of Cauliflower soup:

We had about 2/3 lb. of mahi mahi filets left from yesterday’s meal.

Suzette started by melting 3 Tbsp. of butter in the large skillet. Then she added all of the remaining chopped garlic greens and the herbs: chives, parsley and thyme (about ¼ cup) and sautéed them for a minute or two. 

Then she added another Tbsp. of butter because there were so many herbs and then the mahi mahi filets and sautéed the fish for about two minutes on each side until the flesh turned from pink to white.

Then Suzette added about ¼ cup of white wine to the skillet and then 2 large ladles (about 3/4 to 1 cup) of Cream of Cauliflower soup.   Suzette then covered the skillet with a wok cover to allow the fish to poach for about ten more minutes or until the fish was fully cooked.  Voila it was ready.  Easy.

Asparagus has been so inexpensive lately ($.98/lb.) and delicious that I have bought several bunches every time I go to the store and we had some that were beginning to soften and get funky, so I had washed them and snapped the hard end of the stems off a bunch and put them into the steamer with water before Suzette started cooking.  We steamed them while she cooked the fish, so they would be hot when the fish was finished.

Suzette constructed each plate this evening by laying a piece of poached fish in a pasta bowl and then covering it with half of the poaching medium and then with a small bundle of steamed asparagus (about six or seven stalks).

 

You could also use pasta with this dish and put the pasta down first and then the fish and then the sauce to coat the pasta and then the asparagus to make a stack of food.

We drank a bottle of the 2010 Leese-Fitch Sauvignon Blanc that I bought last week at Jubilation on sale for $7.99.  This wine was a little less fruity and less minerality than the bottle of 2008 Zafára we drank last night, but still had a lot of good citrus flavor and actually an interesting buttery flavor, perhaps due to the California terroir.  We liked it with the fish and may get more of it.  Suzette’s comment was, “Perhaps the difference is due to the greater age of the Zafára.”  Quien sabes.

   

Leese-Fitch is a Sonoma Valley wine.  Its label advertises the fact that the winery is located on the north side of the square in Sonoma in the old adobe building built in 1836 by Leese and Fitch, who were brothers-in-law to General Mariano Vallejo, who founded the town of Sonoma.   The building was used as a winery beginning in the 1860’s although it has had several different uses over the years.  I have always liked it and at $7.99, it is a good buy for a good drinking wine with food or alone.

After dinner we ate bowls of Blue Bell Mocha Almond Fudge ice cream for dessert.

Later I finished the day-old glass of Calvados Berneroy VSOP and found that leaving it out to air out for a day improved its flavor by rounding out the flavor and suppressing some of the biting harshness, although it lost some fruitiness also.  I liked it better the second day.  ($19.95 at Total Wine)

Bon Appétit